where to go, what to do… of course there’s me the writer then she the sales goddess.  Spinning in my own head this morning… feel like I need a walk, but no more caffeine so no Noto in this A.M.  No way.

I’m figuring all this shit out TODAY.  Everything… the single dad thing and how to budget and architect time, clearing off this goddamn desktop, and the laptop’s desktop.  Finding wine pictures, then finding more…. Friend posting something about “wine and vineyards, vineyards and wine…”, something like that.  Saying how lucky she is to work in Napa Valley and with such amazing people.

Makes me miss it… the tourists, the meetings and tastings, the lunchtime walks in the vineyard.  So now, I only write it.  That’s wha tI should be doing though, should say ‘only’.  That’s the aim.  Wine is about time, and reminding us that it’s not a bottomless bay.  It stops, and when we can’t predict – so live and stop stressing.

This of course and inward instruction, to stop stressing about quota and sales and internet & telecom motions and footprints.  But it’s hard.  Anxiety right now putting me into a box, locked. Nailed.  Shut.

What am I going to do…. I know.  Not think about.  Kamikaze.  A wine defector.  When home last night from dinner opened a Zin I bought at Oliver’s the other day, and I rarely if ever open Zin, especially for myself.  Do everything different… stay in wine’s pew and pulse.  That’s the topic… where I’m the most me.

Another vineyard picture.  The Dutcher Crossing days… every lunch walking the rows, letting my thoughts go wherever, seeing my label.  My tasting room – the counter and people I have over.  More than that.. the life to it all, making the wines, waking early, walking blocks just before a pick.

My wine story, when it started, and I tell this story over and over I feel.  Driving with my parents when we lived in San Carlos to the Cupertino mountains, I think technically they’re call the Santa Cruz Mountains…. Picking up their Ridge Montebello futures.  That drive up the cliff, or what felt like a cliff, then up there caught by the views and the tasting room, smell of wine poured.  I didn’t taste then as I was only I think 19 at the time and didn’t drink, but there was impression.  Wine’s spiritual signature was set and it hasn’t since left.  Don’t anticipate it EVER leaving, honestly.